The present invention relates to an intermediate connector for use between a printed circuit card and a substrate carrying electronic circuits. A particularly important, although not exclusive application lies in devices having a ceramic substrate and in particular a substrate carrying a plurality of integrated circuits.
The invention relates more particularly to an intermediate connector of the kind described in French patent FR 90 13996, designed to be mounted on a printed circuit card in such a manner that a first face of the connector bears against the card, and to receive, via a second face, an electronic substrate, while interconnecting contact areas provided on the surface of the substrate that faces the card and tracks on the card, said connector comprising:
an insulating support in which regularly spaced passages are formed; and PA1 electrical signal contacts, each designed to connect one contact area to a respective track, received in at least some of the passages, PA1 in which at least some of the contacts are each made as a cut out metal sheet part, each of said contacts having a rigid branch for securing it to the support and an S-shaped flexible branch whose proximal end is fast with the rigid branch and whose distal end projects beyond the top face of the support, the flexible branch being curved at rest in such a manner that its distal end is then spaced from the rigid branch and the contact-receiving passage has dimensions such that it deforms the flexible branch on insertion of the contact into the support so as to bring the distal portion into contact with the rigid branch, thereby constituting a short circuit. PA1 the passage is defined by a partition slidably receiving the rigid branch and having abutment shoulders that are spaced apart by a determined interval eo, the abutment shoulder closest to the first face of the connector being at a first predetermined height hO therefrom; PA1 the rigid securing branch that extends along the passage includes two mutually facing abutment shoulders that are spaced apart by a determined interval e, greater than eo; and PA1 the distance through which the contact projects from the shoulder closest to the second face is less than ho.
One of the problems in implementing such connectors is obtaining uniform stresses on the contacts when the connector is mounted between a card and a substrate.